Slow Baja - Curt LeDuc Salt Of The Earth Off-Road Racer

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

This Slow Baja Podcast is an archive edition with Off-Road Hall of Fame Racer Curt LeDuc. I recently saw LeDuc at the NORRA Mexican 1000. He led the Ford Factory Bronco Team. In a test of engineering and endurance, Ford ran a stock 2022 Bronco Wildtrak with a Hoss 3.0 suspension. The only modifications were a roll cage and five-point racing harnesses for safety. The stock Ford Bronco ran from the start in Ensenada and finished without issue 1000 miles later in San Jose del Cabo. LeDuc is a salt-of-the-earth Baja racer with an impressive record of DIY accomplishments in off-road racing. When asked about his approach to building winning racers, LeDuc said, “I’m not an engineer; I’m an imagineer” He’s built and raced his vehicles at the highest levels of desert racing for decades. He’s won championships in Desert Class 8 -five years in a row and has two Short Course Off-Road Drivers Association titles, a Governor’s Cup, and a rare and valuable Borg Warner Cup. Inducted into the Off-Road Motorsports Hall Of Fame in 2015, LeDuc, through all his successes, is revered for achieving it all with his own hands. He is a blue-collar racer who earned a reputation for fixing anything with almost nothing. Skills that got him hired by icon Walker Evans. Not only is Curt the guy you want with you in Baja for his mechanical aptitude, but he reportedly knows every mechanic, welder, and taco shop on the peninsula. Enjoy this Slow Baja conversation with Curt Leduc, a man that legendary racer Jack Flannery said was made of “gristle!” Visit Curt LeDuc’s Baja Legends Website Follow Curt LeDuc on Instagram Follow Curt LeDuc on Facebook Learn more about ORMHOF here

Hey, this is Michael Emery. Thanks for tuning into the Slow Baja. This podcast is powered by Tequila Fortaleza, handmade in small batches, and hands down, my favorite tequila. Hey, do you have a four-wheel drive? Did you always want to see Baja racing up close and personal? You need to join Slow Baja in the Nora Mexican-1000,

April 23rd through 30th. The Safari class is your way to get your street legal four-wheel drive vehicle up close and into the action. You've got to check out the safari class at nora.com. That's www. n-O-R-R-A.com. I'm just going to get started and, you know, say hello and we'll talk. Hi, my name's Kurt LaDuke, and I got old and gray. No, I start. See, you're cutting in front of me already.

You're cutting me off, Massell. Go ahead. Hey, it's Michael Emery on the Slow Baja podcast, and I'm delighted to be in Kurt's Kitchen. We just had a great, Kimmy made us a great lasagna dinner, and I'm in the home of the famed Off-Road Motorsports Hall of Famer, Kurt Leduc, and I'm excited to talk to Kurt about his career and about how he got to California as a boy from Massachusetts playing in the mud,

and Kurt's going to tell us all about it. Kurt, say hello. Hi, my name's Kurt LaDuke, and I got old racing off-road cars and gray. But I've got a great history and really enjoyed my passion. Well, I can't wait to get into it, but we're going to start with this clip that I found on the Internet. I just want to play for everybody, then I want you to talk to me about it. So here we go. Stay with you.

All that intensity at the start of the race, and by the finish line it becomes philosophy. You know, when I go on to my next life from this one, my spirit, I want it out here in a cactus about 100 miles from La Paz. Then every four years I'll know that all's well in the world because even though I can't see your talk, I'll feel the exhaust. I'll smell the fumes in the air. And some motorcycle ride are too tired to go on and lean his bike against me, rest in my shade maybe, and gather a strength and push on to La Paz. That's what Baja is about. That's what's going through your head out there. Survival.

And, you know, it's a challenge. This race especially starting in Tijuana and coming to La Paz and all the adversity, the weather, the rain. I mean, just a great day. Well, Kurt, what do you want to tell us about that? Your spirit life, you want to be a cactus. Yeah, that's pretty deep. That was a solo drive from Tijuana to La Paz in a trophy truck.

My deal is I switch co-drivers at halfway. So at San Ignacio, somebody jumps out and my buddy Becca gets in. We go to the finish. Troy Johnson, who runs the Fab School now, started with me and T.J. And we had some issues along the way. We finished fourth, I believe. Walker was third by minutes. But, yeah, that was rolling in my head the whole time I was down there.

pre-running and racing and I just wanted to deliver it. And so it was pretty powerful motivation to get to that finish line. Jimmy Smith from Ultra Wheels had crashed and was on his side. And I drove by him and I stopped. I saw you had two flat tires. And I was chasing Walker for third. It was close. And anyway, so I backed up, Jimmy Smith guy. I saw him tie the strap on the back of my trophy truck. This is down the bottom of the stair steps going into La Paz. So you're really close. Jimmy was leading the race overall.

And nobody else would stop. And so I thought to myself, I'm going to need wheels for the rest of my life. So I backed up to Jimmy, Mike Shostall, tied the strap on. And I gave it a tug and popped it down on its wheels. I knew he had two spares so he could fix it, did finish, but I knew it was tied. So once it got down on its wheels, I just floored that Donovie Jeep Cherokee and broke the strap and got to the finish line and delivered that memorable speech. But it's really the way I felt like, you know, it's really about the challenge,

whether you're soloing on a motorcycle or soloing in a car or, you know, soloing in a UTV. you're going to challenge yourself in this peninsula run to be the man. And, you know, now there's good teams, and that doesn't make it any less challenging. It's just a whole different ballgame. You just got to get the car or the bike to the next guy. So he's got a chance to get down the stairs steps to La Paz and deliver his speech. Well, I'll let you take a breath now after delivering that speech. And thanks for breaking that down.

And I'm not sure that all of my listeners are going to know what it's like or what you mean when you say, Iron Man. You drove that, that thousand mile race. You were the only driver. I was going to say you drove it by yourself, but you have a navigator and you change navigators during the race. But you drove it the entire peninsula by yourself. Yeah, back in the early days with the jeeps with Mike Leslie or, you know, the trophy trucks. You didn't have a backup driver. There was, you know, the field was smaller and people didn't have the experience.

So, you know, I would just solo it. It was just, it was just part of the routine. And it didn't seem that hard to do, you know, at the time. And, you know, you get fatigued. The car gets fatigued. And you just got to take care of it, you know. So that's really what we're trying to do is mental game, physical game, an emotional game. You can't control a race car unless you can control your emotions.

That's profound. Can you talk to me a little bit about the mental strain of trying to focus for 1,000 miles? How many hours were you behind the wheel at, you know, close to full tilt? Minimum, minimum 21 hours. Okay. 22 hours. And then. So where does your mind go in the middle of the night?

What do you see? What happens? Do you have any mental places? where you say, who I don't remember that at all. Depends. If you're running up front, it's powerful motivation. Your concentration is right there. If you're down and have to change the transmission or you're stuck, you know, and you're two hours back and you're mixed in with cars you don't know.

But when you're up front running with people you know and the fans are excited, you're in the top five overall headed down the peninsula, it's easy. The toughest part is right before dawn, you know, from that three in the morning to the sunrise. And when the sun comes, it's like a whole new game. Your speed picks up. You can see better if you haven't scratched your shield. And you're on target. You're just not going to destroy that car.

Let's get it to La Paz. Gotcha. I want to read a little bit about a quote from your 2015 induction to the Offroad Motorsports Hall of Fame. It says, Kurt Leduc brings many great effects to the off-road world, such as ingenuity, integrity, and innovation. Leduc is a self-made grassroots champion who has encompassed his love for the sport into a way of life. Ingenuity, integrity, and innovation.

Those are some powerful, that's powerful alliteration. Can you unpack what that means to have your colleagues say that about you? I just for me it was easy like work is only work if you'd rather be somewhere else I never had a boat I never had a cabin in the mountains I never had a beach house I just wanted to be out in that shop building the best car that I could and surround myself with good people I didn't do it alone Larry Hawkins Troy Johnson I mean so many people Daniel Llewellyn you know over the over over over all these years but nobody on my team ever said no to me. If I said, hey, let's take the shocks off and we're going to change one shim, they didn't argue. Nobody talked me out of it. We would take the shock off, change one shim, and try to go faster. And so back in the early days, in the 90s, you know, I needed bypass valves.

And so I basically had to invent bypass valves. I know other people have made them, but I was the guy that made them and sold them to everybody. and I invented red for rebound. I figured out in the beginning I needed a check valve, so we came up with aluminum, hard-anodized aluminum check valves, and you would send me your custer shocks, and we would weld them on, hone them, and everybody got faster, including myself. The dual-rate springs, we were part of that revolution.

Moving the reservoirs down by the seal cap was something that, you know, I felt was important to do, but it was also that I could go faster, But in order to pay for my racing, I had to sell it to everybody else. So, you know, and I'm glad. I mean, if I was smart, I would have copyrighted it or patented it. But I just wanted to go faster. I just wanted that trophy room full. And I can attest it's quite full.

It's quite full. So that encompasses or that encapsulates the ingenuity, the integrity, and the innovation right there. You wanted to do it for yourself. You needed others to make it feel. feasible financially and it made everybody faster. Right. You sent me your shocks and you said you needed them back in a week. Then we got them done in a week and sent them back.

And, you know, we had to make all the Heimspacers. We had to, you know, machine parts that nobody else had. Like you couldn't buy it. There was no car tech back then. So you had to make everything. So I'm not saying it's easier now, but the products are there. And, you know, you still have to go out and tune it. You still have to figure out.

You still got to hit that ditch. wide open and hold your breath and see if the valving change you made was right or wrong and you know everybody's looking for that magic speed you know and you just got to push yourself push your team push the components on your car till you find it can we talk a little bit about you growing up in Massachusetts and and how you fell in love with four-wheeling and off-road off-roading and how that led to you making a name for yourself in a career in california and the bahaw desert Well, I just think, you know, I grew up plowing snow with a Jeep hancho truck, you know, to make a living in the wintertime. And I've always been an entrepreneur.

I don't know. None of my family is. But I just, off-roading was just fun. Like I'd go to stock car races and, you know, I would sneak into the pits and I would help people. And so I learned how to use a tubing bender. And, you know, I bought my first Lincoln Buzz Box. And started building parts for jeez. And to me, it was just, it was easy. Roll cages, and then I used racing to grow my business.

So, you know, you'd have to wait three months for the magazines to come out to see who won the Baja 1,000 or who won the Mint. And because of that, you know, I just got interested and started racing my own Jeep so that I could bring products and display it at events and sign up dealers and travel all up and down the East Coast and brought my family, brought the kids. And, you know, just it was just a way of life and still love off-roading and then finally came to baha with walker Evans and went down to la parisima and the truck never made it but uh the next thousand he invited me out he did win it and i was ready to move i was 30 years old i had a four-wheel parts store basically if you guys know what that is and i had a you know retail store and

service center and we built race cars and sold them all up and down the east coast but i was just ready to move to California. Like I just wanted a challenge in my life. So I just packed up everything and they put it in a rider truck and moved to California. And when did you start your racing career? When did you start competing? You started that parts business right out of high school, yeah? Yeah, right out of high school. I mean, of course, with any business, like you're going to make some mistakes and you're going to open shops and you're going to close them. But probably about 178 77 and I restored one of my cars that I built 1978 and I brought it to Crandon last for the 50th anniversary and it's all independent suspension mid-engine v6 chopped channeled sections four-wheel

disc brakes and it it was just it just taught me that if I can dream it up I can build it I can race it and I can win with it and so it just the creative side was there you know I'm not an engineer I'm an imagine here. So the motor goes here, the rear end goes there. Everything else has to fit in between it. And so I just, every car was an evolution of the one I built before it. So whether it was Corderlyptic Springs or Corvette rear end, you know, it was like, it was just the stadium truck with Mickey Thompson.

One of the stories is that Indianapolis Hoosier Dome, racing on asphalt with Mickey, with the steel jumps. And Mickey comes over to me, and I love Mickey Thompson. He was a stand-up guy for me. me. And I had a small Ford program. It would have been 1985 or 84. And he comes to say, I can't let you race, Kurt. Mickey does. And I go, why? He goes, well, Cal Wells has filed a protest on your truck because the rules say it has to be held up by a leaf spring. And I go, what is? He goes, no, Kurt. We went and looked. You know, it's full bed on the back, full cab.

It's got air shocks on the trailing arm. So that's what's holding the car up. It's not. It went over the steel jumps, like amazing. So I said, well, go get. Mr. Wells and come on back. So I jacked up the truck and Cal got down on one knee and looked underneath the back, stood up, his face was purple, Roger Mears got underneath and looked, Walker Evans got underneath and looked, Mickey got down and looked. And what I had done is I'd taken a Corvette leaf spring and I put it behind the rear end side to side with little steel cables and that was the first quarter-olyptic truck that anybody had seen. And I know Nelson turned them and put them, you know, towards the back of the truck, which was an improvement.

But it was, I got to race that weekend and go to the Silver Dome. And so I just, I showed the West Coast guys that I can be innovative, you know, coming from the wrong coast. But because I grew up on the East Coast, I couldn't send my shocks out to get rebuilt. You know, I couldn't, our car wasn't down the street. I had to service my own transmission. So because of that, I had to learn all the mechanical stuff 100%, just so that I could be competitive and I was. I think one of the, uh, from the research I was doing one of the

YouTube videos, um, a fellow was talking about your first time he saw your truck at Crandon. He said it looked like a spaceship. Yeah. So that story was we had, every year I would like Kyle, my son Kyle. He sells his race cars because they're fast that people want to buy them. So every year I'd build a new one. And so I built this car and I'm, I'm thinking my wife's pregnant with my son Todd and I'm thinking I'm never going to have money again. So I better build a new race car. My shop wasn't that successful. We were struggling. So I built a new race car and I'm out testing. I have a picture of me testing it with Todd as a three-month-old baby. Anyways, so then another two years later, she's pregnant with Kyle and I'm like, man, I better build a new race car

because I'm never going to have money again. So sold that car, built a new race car, and that was the all-aluminum body. So finally, my wife's pregnant with Valerie. and I'm like, screw it. I'm always going to have race cars. But anyways, that aluminum car friend of mine built Rolls-Royce bodies in Connecticut. And he wanted an English wheel. And I don't know anything about English wheels.

This is a high school friend. And I said, okay, well, show me what you want. I said, well, I can make that. I said, but if I make it for you, you have to build an aluminum body for my short course four-wheel drive truck. So he did. So he hand-hammered. I built the English wheel.

out of scrap metal from the steel yard. We machined all the wheels. And that car, I think the whole body weighed 11 pounds. It was all aluminum with aluminum beating. He was a metal finisher, no Bondo. So we never painted the car. It was always just aluminum. And it was just one of those cars.

It was just the guys on the West Coast have paid attention to it. It wasn't just a hobbled together mud racer. It was something to come out to the West Coast. And the people that were at Riverside that year, like I made a mark. I led the race. I ended up crashing out,

but became friends with Walker Evans from that day forward to this day. Like, we're still good friends. He ran over my camp in 1986 in the Baja 500 when I was a college kid taking photos. Who did? Walker. So I thought that, you know, my company that worked for trackside photo, they drop, you know, photographers off at all the jumps. And I was 25 miles away from anybody standing out in the middle.

of nowhere. So I guess if you're a racer and can see a photographer standing out in the middle of nowhere, maybe you can surmise that there's probably a jump that you're going to launch off of. So as I saw many vehicles slow down and then take the jump and take off, I thought maybe if I lied down with a big telephoto lens, I could get that shot of the truck soaring and all the dust in the background. Well, anyways, my little folding chair and my cooler with the water and the cookies and everything else. You know, as a college kid, I had my books there. I was studying in between cars, you know, and somebody,

I don't recall who Walker was head-to-head with, but there was two abreast, and he ran right over my stuff. So it was a long day out there with no water, nothing else. But it wasn't hot. Life lesson. Yeah, it was right out of Ensenada, and I definitely should not have been lying down, you know, trying to photograph guys catching air.

My goal in the Donovie Trophy truck was to get people to stand up out of their chairs and run away from the race course. Wow. Yeah. And it was very successful because it looked like I was going to crash at any minute. There you go. So you were on the edge of control

is what you're trying to convey here. Yeah. Do you think of yourself? I don't know how to, excuse my ignorance here, Kurt. You've had a long professional career. Do you think of yourself as a professional race car driver? Oh, absolutely. Because you said something when we were in Baja in October of 2019.

I'm just an out of work professional race car driver. You said when you pursue things like professional race car driver or professional athlete, you have to be all in. So you've been all in and your kids are all in. So talk about the Leduc legacy. I don't know any other way to do what I've accomplished. I've seen people come and go. You know, after every Baja 1,000, basically you're out of a job.

And so how you land on your feet. And I told my kids, like growing up, like how you handle. losing because you're going to lose 90% of the time is how people are going to know you. It's how you handle that. You know, so you've got to learn to be ready to deal with it to the best of your ability. You have to hide it. You have to choke it down. Just like me, I got to the finish of the bottom thousand.

I got fourth. But it didn't matter. I told a story that made it onto the film, onto the TV show, that made that sponsor happy. Right? And the Goodyear Hat, the Valveling Fire Suit. And even though I didn't win, I got the TV time that helped me keep my program going for another year. And, you know, as part of your Off Road Motorsports Hall of Fame induction. So it's followed you.

I didn't do it for those reasons, though, because you couldn't fast forward to another 20 years down the road for that. But yeah, you're speaking from the heart. Yeah, it was. It was easy. It was just easy. I made a movie called NeverLift, which came out in VHS tape, so that's how long ago it was. And then DVDs, and we sold a lot of them. But in it, you know, I say, find something you love to do, do it for 20 years.

At the end of 20 years, you're either rich and happy or you're poor and happy, but you're happy. And so in my career, I think, okay, I'm happy. I'm not wealthy, but I'm okay, right? So I've had people, women, come up to me and say, you made that stupid movie, right? Never lived? Yeah. Offroad Expos, races. My husband used to sit at the end of his bed with a steering room from his race car, pretend he was driving your car.

Do you know how much that cost me, Mr. Leduc? You said, find something to love to do. I hated my job. And I always wanted to be a nurse or I always wanted to be in finance or I always wanted to be a teacher. I quit my job, went to school, and that's the best thing I ever did. And they'll give me a hug. So to me, like, that was just that was worth it. This stupid movie I made, you know, but it was just everything that I was doing.

There wasn't a lot of racing on TV. And then I did it for the sport. I thought it wasn't just about me, but it's just the show that a kid that can weld and bend a tube can build a career out of this. A guy who can roll a truck and keep on driving when it gets back onto its wheels. walkers and i are really good at that short course did you did as you were going over do you you put that thing in neutral or push the clutch in how does that work or break it down for me this isn't my claim to fame but parnelly jones when i met him with walker evans said it's never a wreck until you give up on it so parnelly jones advice so all your racers is it's a good

bumper sticker right there use the brakes the steering wheel like whatever it takes like downshift upshift, like just keep driving it. And you got a better chance than if you just panic. So that's my advice to everybody. Apparently my kids took it to heart because they do really well. Yeah, I think in that film you actually do roll a truck, don't you? And then keep on racing. I said crashing is just the part of the sport.

Don't be afraid to crash. Can we jump into a little of your, I mean, take me down a memory lane here and talk about your career highlights. I've got stuff written here from 1994 up to 2019. Do you want me to read it or do you want to read it? jumping on it. Give me a couple of them that are memorable. People always ask me, like, what's the, you know, how many races have you won?

What's your favorite race? I always say, I never won enough. And the next race I win will be the best. Like, I don't. So go ahead. Ask about numbers and stats, which don't really mean anything. That trophy room is really what it's about. because somebody worked as hard as me, spent as much money as me, and did take that home.

Exactly. And to me, that's the treasure of those. There's no monetary value to them. You know, and somebody told me, like, trophies are to remind your grandkids when they're taking them to the dump that you were somebody important. So they don't really mean a lot to let them go. Well, I'm going to run through a couple of these. We've got 1994-96, the Soda Governor's Cup championship, the 1997, best in the Desert Series first overall, 1997 score trophy truck champion, 98 Borg-Warner Cup winner, King of Off-road Champion.

You want to talk about that one because it's a beautiful trophy? So that's the Borg-Warner trophy. It was a $100,000 trophy on display at Crandon. It got your race time and your name on it. and there's two Borg Warner trophies, one at Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which we're all familiar with. And Borg Warner developed all the transfer cases for Ford for the torque on demand. So they have the second trophy at Crandon. And the driver, if you win it, you get to take home a beautiful silver and gold trophy.

And, you know, it took me a couple of years. One year, I was running my cars that I built out of my shop with my team, we're running first through fifth that cranin in the cup race. So that's four-wheel drives against two-wheel drives. You know, they split them up. They give them the two-wheel drives a head start. You've got to come through the pack. The problem was I was third in that race.

But came back to win it, but it's very difficult. I think, you know, there's only a, the Borg Warner, I think Kyle and I are the only father's son that have won it. And so it's just, it's just history, you know. And so when you go to Cranon, you see the trophy, there's the names on it. And, you know, the fans understand it. It's in the parade every year. They kept it in the vault and the bank for all these years. So it's just part of the history.

And there's a lot of drivers that haven't won it. There's a lot of trophy truck drivers that haven't won a trophy truck championship. And so, you know, I'm happy that I got to do that. Well, take a breath. We're going to cycle through a few more here. We're about halfway through the list. 1999 and 2000 Perry Dakar car builder and crew chief second in class Perry to car is not kid stuff that's a serious serious MF of an event

so when I did it was in Africa every year and so Y2K was from Senegal 7,000 miles and at the end you come up over a sand dune and the finish line is at the pyramids in Cairo Egypt and we had two cars and both of us finish finished Darren Skilton and I. And it was just an amazing event. Like the first time you see a camel, like you just drive around it. Like even when you're in a race,

monkeys crossing the road, you're like, that was monkeys. And, but, you know, it was just, it was a time where I, you know,

it was an opportunity that came up and I just went and made the most of it and got to race at four years. So, 2002 to 2007, Best in the Desert 8,000 champion. Can you break that down for me? Tell people if they don't know

what an 8,000. So I wanted to race a trophy truck after Dakar, and I was still racing short course, but I was involved, and I couldn't put a deal together. So instead of beating my head against the wall, not being able to race a trophy truck, I went to some different sponsors, including Skyjacker and B.F. Goodrich and Ford trucks, and put a deal together to race the class 8,000. So it was a production frame, twin eye beams up front, and, it was a great truck. We finished every mile of every race we entered for seven straight years.

Like score gives you a milestone award for finishing every mile of every race in one year. We did it for seven. And six championships, I had three seasons that were perfect. And I know people will downplay it because it wasn't trophy truck or, you know, but I was out there racing. I qualified up front. We ran up front until they outlawed me from running up front. And, it was a way to bring my kids into the fold because Kyle was racing short course and so I took Todd desert racing with me. We would start and we would get halfway through a race and we would switch seats and I would ride with them in the beginning just to pass the desert technology to him and it was a great truck and we maintained it here in the shop and it was just it was like magic

and it was fast like we finished third fourth overall like even the Donnavieve. Jeep when I race that. It's a straight axle Jeep Cherokee. Four-wheel drive. Finished 10th overall. I finished 11th overall solo to La Paz in a class 3 Jeep. Crazy. I just drove the wheels off.

If you gave me an opportunity, I just drove the wheels off everything. You seem like a guy who likes to over-deliver. I just like to get the job done. So we're not all the way finished yet, Kurt. We're up to 2011 second in the Baja 100, 2013, second in the Baja 100, and 2015. and 2015 inducted into the off-road motorsports Hall of Fame. Does any of that compare to your 2019 Nora 500, the inaugural 500 where you got to hold Slow Baja's hand in the Savvy Safari class?

I mean, I know there's a life of racing and competing and being at the front. Does any of that compare to like holding the hand of a guy wearing a pith helmet, driving a 50-year-old truck in Baja? But you're just the Baja guy. So you just, so for me, I got involved with Nick Vandaway, a great, a dairy farmer out of Phoenix. We built some trophy trucks. We race for a lot of years. We finished second in trophy truck, three different times in the Baja 1,000. One time Nick was driving, got to the finish ahead of McMillan and lost by a minute. And, you know, heartbreaking, but still rewarding. So, you know, but again, I'm just, you know, but again, I'm just. an out-of-work trophy truck driver. So the opportunity to go back to Baja, whether it's with Cameron Steele and his trips, my Baja legends tours with Nora,

either as a mechanic, you know, the slow, you know, savvy safari. You can call it the Slow Baja class. It's all right. But I'm just saying it's an opportunity to go back to Baja and see those same people that know me, that know the sport,

and then can appreciate it. Like, if I can't share this knowledge, like, why do you want to keep it locked up in a vault? You know, we can't wait to drive. drive our old land cruiser down to Baja, and when we go, we go with Baja Bound Insurance. Their website's fast and easy to use, Baja Baja Bound Insurance, serving Mexico travelers since 1994. All right, let's roll then. You should talk with more emotion, though.

You kind of, you kind of... Oh, yeah? All right, good to know. You don't have your Howard Stern excitement doing. The calm voice here. Well, you are. Hey, so let's, let's, hey, we're back with Kurt Leduc at his kitchen table, and Kimmy's made a lovely dinner and there's some brownies here that I'm going to get into probably on my drive home.

But, Kurt, we were just talking about Nora and it sounds to me like you're feeding an addiction still. You love Baja and getting back, even if you have to hold my hand, you're willing to get out and shepherd some folks so you can get your Baja fix. Well, you know, I just want to take people down there and make them comfortable. And the Savvy Safari is about that. We leave as a group. We stay together, you know, the only security, even with Cameron Steel Strip, the only security you have, you know, his trail of missions is the group. You know, somebody's got a strap. Somebody might have a part. Somebody can jumpstart you. You know, nobody, you know, nobody's going to leave you behind. And so that's what Baja really is about. When you're down there pre-running, it's that way. You stop for

everybody. And you can stop and have a problem and the rancher's going to stop and ask if you need gas or what do you need. It's just in their, culture. And so when he stops and you give his kid a couple of stickers and you know, you talk to him for a few minutes, you're good to go. Like everybody gets in this panic mode, like keep moving. But anyways, I haven't had a bad experience in Baja. I hope I never do. And so I, and so I encourage people to go down, you know, you know, adventure. Like go up to Alaska, go to Canada, go somewhere, do something. Don't get on an airplane and land in Miami and get it on a cruise ship and go to a fake village in the Caribbean

and think you're having an adventure. Well, I think the Baja, I think Baja, not the Baja, I think Baja is still a capital A adventure. One minute off the pavement in Catavina, you're into stunning, beautiful desert, huge cactuses. And I mean, with it, it's desolation on our doorstep. You can be into serious fun. a couple minutes off the road. Absolutely. And, you know, because of COVID, we did a trip up through gold country, up through Nevada this last summer. And it was awesome.

We went up through from Baker all the way up to Beatty, all the way up to Tonapaw, just through Silver Peak, to Bodie, Lake, you know, June Lake. I mean, America has all that as well. But you can use your credit card wherever you go. And AAA will come find you. You know what I mean? I do know what you mean. Baja, it's the group.

You're watching to make sure the guy behind you makes the right turn because you don't want to spend the rest of the day looking for him. And so it just brings the group together. You know, you can't explain it. I don't know if it's the same that people that skydive that jump out of a plane if they bond once they realize that, you know, they cheated death. Or, you know, it's just my way of getting that adventure in my life. And at my age, I'm 66 years old.

and I still get to do it. I go down to Baja six times a year. You know, John Gable and I raced an old class eight. I built for him in 1990. You know, we've won it five times in Nora. Like, we've had some great times down there, you know, and I don't drive. With Gable, I'm just a navigator, and that's his deal because I was still actively racing trophy trucks. And so, you know, and then turn around and drag everything home.

Like, you know, it's just like I broke a rear end gear one time, and somebody opened up their shop and pulled the rear end right out of their little class seven truck in Viscayano so we could finish, you know, the Nora. So, I mean, it's that kind of stuff. And then, you know, those guys come to my swap meet and, you know, they buy used parts and they buy use lights and they take them down there and they build their race cars, you know, and so I think the Hall of Fame for me, it validates a lot of the things that I did. But when Casey Folks wanted to do a rookie meeting at the Parker Desert race at the start of the season, he asked me to do it. And of course I did it. And I continue to do it. You know, to swap meet, I started because people would call me up wanting to buy

use seats and use shocks because their kid wanted to go out, didn't have the money. So every time I see a kid carrying a seat or a pair of shocks out of my swap meet, that kid could be the next Robbie Gordon or the next Rob McCackran. And, you know, and we're giving him that opportunity that nobody else did. So 22 years ago, I started it. And it was free. But then you have to, Then he'd get all these expenses and insurance. And so it has evolved. But still, to see the smiles and the old race cars that come out of there that get put together and they're racing the Moore series or they're racing snore.

Like, that's what it's all about. Like, that's why I continue to get aggravated and put it on. Well, I don't think this show is going to be up before the swap meet, but the swap meet is coming up on March 6 and 7. So just at the end of the week. Yeah, exactly. Hey, I think it was, we're going to turn this back to Nora for a few more minutes here before I get out of your hair. I think it was L.S.A. O. Garcia, who told me, Kurt LaDuke knows every mechanic, welder, tire shop, and taco shop on the entire Baja Peninsula.

Is that a fair assessment? I don't know every. I look forward to meeting every. But, you know, the saying I have is, I know a guy. Like, I can get you out of the desert. and I know a guy. So, you know, that's, that's for sure. Yeah, so on my drive out here, I'm thinking, who's going to tell me a Kurt Leduc story? So I dialed up Cameron, of course, he's on a call

and texts me a couple of Kurt Antidokes. And then I call anecdotes. I called Bud Felkamp, and he said, Kurt Ladook knows a guy. Kurt Ladook knows a guy. We were racing a car, and Nora race, blew the headers off this thing. And he sends me to some shop in Loretto.

and that guy had a perfect set of headers for my vintage 327, and he couldn't have been better, fit them all. And you know what else? There was a can of sealed, a big thing of sealed race gas. They'd been sitting there for a couple years. No, it wasn't sitting there. But the story is, all true with Bud. But I had cracked a tail housing on my transmission in Gables truck.

So we nursed put fluid in, got it to Loretto. I went to my buddy shop. And I said, hey, I need a tail housing for a C6. And he's like, no, I just have four-wheel drives. I go, no, I need one off a school bus. He's like, oh, I got the school bus ones. And they were steel. So anyways, we were in there, and I put my tool bag on this drum of E-85.

Because then to run a class one, you had to run E-85. And there was a class for it, and Bud's car was there. So anyway, so I'm taking the back of the transmission apart. And we get it fixed. And I look and it says, E-85. And I ask the guy who owns a shop. It's right there by the Jeep in Loretto. I said, what is that?

He's like, I don't know. Somebody dropped it off, but I don't even know whose it is. So we go back to LaMission, and there's Bud. He's like running first or second on the road, and he's got his head down. And the whole day, that day headed to Loretto, we'd see like one exhaust pipe here, one exhaust pipe there. Pretty soon we knew it wasn't a V6 because I was counting him riding along, headed for La Pherisma, and then down into Loretto. anyways but all the pipes had broken off this motor and when we were sitting there talking to him I look and there was a set of like sand car headers up swept with the mufflers built all on them

so I get back to the La Mission Hotel and there's there's Bud with his head down and I said aren't you running the 85 he goes yeah but I'm out like the headers all broke off I go well I'll show you where the drum is he's like what like we're sitting there eating that pizza at the La Mission it was good Anyways, and said, yeah, he's got some headers. You need headers for a doom buggy? You know, I'm not a buggy guy. I don't know what kind of car was. But he went over there, and sure enough, the guy cut one little tube out,

headers fit. He got his E85. So he starts off the road up, the pavement up to San Javier. And we start, I think, 6th, Gable and I. And we get about halfway up the hill, and here comes Bud's car backwards down the mountain. They have blown every gear but, like, fourth, on the way up hill. It ran good with the headers and the fresh E85. Poor bud. That was it. They were done.

That's a true story. Wow. But there's hundreds of them. You know, and I'm the McGiver. Like, I can fix it with a ratchet strap and, you know, get you out. That's, and so the tour keeps going. So with Cameron, we've had, you know, some issues and we just, Cameron trust me to take him into town and get it fixed. And, you know, we're going to start again tomorrow. He doesn't want his customers to go home. Just like when we all do Baja, we don't want to go home. Like, you know, some points, you know, there's been times I have DNF. Absolutely.

It just makes you prep better. It makes you work harder. Well, we're going to wrap up here. Kurt, we met the Safari class of the 2019 Nora, the inaugural NORA, the inaugural NORA Baja 500. And I just have to ask you here sincerely and seriously, throw me under the bus. Go ahead. But be honest.

What were you thoughts when you saw a guy in a Pith helmet in a 50-year-old truck on 30-year-old tire? They are 30-year-old tires, but 30-inch tires, you know, no doors. I mean, what goes through your head? Is that guy an idiot? Nope. He just wants adventure. And we delivered it. Absolutely.

There's no wrong to it. Nothing. Like, I didn't have one doubt. We would have told you out. We would have told you back to town. and your adventure would have started. You know, it's like adventure is going to start exactly where the car I'm driving

runs out of fuel in Mexico. That's a great way of looking at it. We're going to leave it right there. Kurt LaDuke is a real pleasure to be in your home. Having dinner with you tonight, I'm going to take a couple of brownies for the drive back, and thank you so much. Awesome. Thanks for having me.

Okay, see long. Slow Baja's wardrobe is provided by Taylor Stitch. I was lucky enough to wear test some items on my 3,000-mile Baja XL trip. The vertical jacket, the California shirt, which is a beautiful flannel shirt, I call it the Baja California shirt, and some white oak, beautiful, salvaged denim jeans. Put all that stuff on to make me look good in Baja, and I never took it off. I was wearing that stuff for 10 days straight.

That vertical jacket is a handsome, handsome jacket in the truck, under the truck, at dinner, Taylor Stitch, clothes that are meant to wear in, not out. Folks, you made it this far. I've got to ask you, please help us out. Rate it, review it if you're on iTunes, share it with a friend. Go to Slowbaha.com or Slowbaha on Instagram or Facebook and get some stickers, hats, t-shirts. Every little bit helps me put a gallon of gas in the old FJ40 or a taco in my belly. So please do what you can to help out. I really appreciate it.